


Rosebud

by Oresteia



Category: Boardwalk Empire
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 12:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oresteia/pseuds/Oresteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy's reflections/dreams on Jimmy and Richard's secret life before and after Jimmy and Angela's death</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rosebud

**Author's Note:**

> 1st: Unbetaed, cleaned up somewhat but I would say some mistakes.... maybe a lot are visible but I don't have a beta *shrugs*. Any volunteers though...
> 
> Minor slash not really anything beyond a kiss, mostly gen, and some talk of earlier discomfort of slash based on dated periods
> 
> I don't know enough about 1920's USA to know if Christmas tree tradition was a thing back then but I've watched Mickey Mouse Christmas 6 billion times and decided it was okay to go there.
> 
> 2nd: standard disclaimer, I don't own anything, no money is being made off it and everything is property to HBO and its makers
> 
> 3rd and last: so... the title and the sled he names rosebud is a shameless reference of Orson Welles because that man is brilliant and so was Citizen Kane. Lastly, this isn't a work of brilliance and I know I'm subpar at best at this writing business. I apologise in advance.

Once upon a time, Tommy was a young boy that had two parents. A tragic mother that was always sad waiting for someone to rescue her. An absent father, minus his days he was there with the man with the funny face.

Only his face was not funny to the boy; it was unique, special and as days grew on it was one of the memories that stuck with him. Eventually he would come to understand that his face was born in blood, his ‘funny’ face was nothing but paint and wood. His mask to cover what he really was (not what he looked like underneath) on the inside.

That little boy had not been little in years; he was a man now and not just any man but an old one at that. They told him he was a sold 90 something, he was not quite sure if that was the case, he hardly remembered himself. He would ask if his family if he could but it was doubtful they knew either.

Thomas (formerly Tommy) stopped being able to remember his mother years ago, at some point she just fizzled out of his brain. Dementia aside all he really remembered were the dreams of a small child wishing for the family he to be together. Which ironically was that “silly” looking man and his father.

His mama was gone for Christmas for some reason, he never quite remembered. A psychologist might have suggested it was because of how uncomfortable she made his father. The truth was in Tommy’s fragile psyche it was just more convenient she not be there.

_“Hey buddy, want to hang the star up top?” his father asked_

_Jimmy stood there holding Tommy in his arms, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, some silly red hat on his head and his suspenders hanging off from his pants loose on the ground._

_Tommy smiled, eagerly being hoisted above his father’s head, he reached but his little fingers could not connect the star to the treetop. He was still too short._

_In the corner, Richard got up and walked towards them slowly but with purpose._

_“Need some help little man?” he asked in his guttural voice._

_Tommy giggled and nodded his head; his father motioned to the tree._

_“Knock it down an inch?”_

_Richard shook his head and motioned to the top, he jerked the pine branches down just enough to bend, not break them. This allowed for Tommy to be able to reach though the angle was a little hard for him to evenly plant the bright big yellow star on it._

_Jimmy straightened it out so that Richard could let go. The tree bounced back in perfect condition. His father let him down and Richard pulled the cigarette from his dad’s mouth gingerly._

_He stomped it to the ground and then his father eagerly planted a kiss on his half missing mouth. It was hardly strong because his father was afraid to break Richard, but Tommy could tell it was more important than one his mother had ever gotten._

_“So little man, wanna go walk the boardwalk? See some snow and try out that sled of yours?” his dad asked him._

_Tommy nodded._

_“Good, let’s go.”_

_“Rosebud, come here rosebud.”_

Thomas would grow up to inherit a fortune passed down by his grandfather. He would have a few wives and a few kids. He never found peace in just one thing or one person after Richard passed. Tommy would spend most of his childhood and the rest of his life with Richard by his side.

At first (when he was old enough to understand Richard’s chosen profession as a gangster that is), he wondered if it was a protection thing but as he got older Tommy knew it was more than that. 

He remembered maybe (possibly faulty memory or a made up dream) a real kiss between Richard and his father. Not some platonic friendly one like his grandma often gave other women, the kiss he remembered (maybe) was like those gay kids now. Real loving like, not something dirty or against God as some of these young angry men thought.

Tommy often wished he could have asked his father if Richard had been more than just friends or that maybe that he had the guts when Richard was still alive to ask him. However, it was the 1950’s when Richard passed and back then no one asked those sorts of questions (or at least Tommy didn’t).

Tommy wondered how much longer it would be before he got to ask them for himself. 

Three weeks after his dream of Richard, Jimmy and him at Christmas, Thomas passed.

His last memory was of the falling snow on the boardwalk of Atlantic City. He was on sled watching tourists pass by as his fathers’ (as he come to know both Jimmy and Richard as later in life) holding hands behind him.


End file.
